In these chansons, logic is deliberately ignored, and metaphysics and ethics are very little meddled with. All the subtleties and refinements of the doctrine, all the gentleness and sweet reasonableness of the accredited expounders of the doctrine, are crowded out by the necessity for the simple, downright, direct appeal to the passion which is the chanson’s peculiar province.
The very titles of these chansons de propagande show that their purpose is inflammation rather than persuasion. Notice a few of them:—
“Ouvrier, prends la Machine!” “Crevez-moi la Sacoche” (money-bag)! “Fusille les Voleurs,” Les Briseurs d’Images, Le Drapeau Rouge, Le Réveil, “Vivement, Brav’ Ouvrier!” La Chanson du Linceul.
When proselytism is not sufficiently pronounced in the chansons themselves, caustic foot-notes make up the deficiency. Thus this definition of the word députés: “Deputies are persons who make rules for others and exceptions for themselves.”
These chansons, besides being sung in the various anarchist functions, appear, along with ballads, amorous ditties, and the topical songs of the day, on the programmes of the little wine-shop concerts of the faubourgs, at which each and every person present is expected to “do his turn” and all are counted on to help out with the choruses. These diminutive faubourg concert halls are the lineal descendants of the famous historic workingmen’s goguettes and guinguettes into which the great Déjazet was happy to escape and from which the thought and the spirit of revolt were never far distant. “Behind their closed doors,” says Jules Claretie, “the government was roundly berated, the couplets of the chansonniers there becoming for it more redoubtable than the fiercest articles of the press.”
The chansons de propagande—the more catchy, least compromising of them, that is—are sung in the public squares and on the street corners of the working districts by the itinerant musicians, who are at all seasons, but especially at fête times, a picturesque feature of Paris streets, and who conduct so many open-air singing schools, as it were, in that they teach their motley audiences to sing the songs they have the wit to sell them.
Only a few of the anarchist chansons ever see the types. The majority either circulate in handwriting among the groups or, without having been taken down, are transmitted orally, like the mediæval folk-songs or the Homeric lays, suffering, like those, all sorts of modifications and corruptions of text in the transmission.
Of the chansons populaires révolutionnaires which have come down to the present from the Great Revolution, the Marseillaise, a true chanson de propagande in its time, well called by Lamartine “the fire-water of the Revolution,” is not in favour with the orthodox anarchists, because it is essentially patriotic and uses the offensive word citoyen. The “Ça Ira” is still sung by the anarchists, but not always to its original words. The Père Duchêne, a part of which dates from the Directoire, is sung mainly by the coal-miners of the region of the Loire. The Carmagnole alone—the saucy, rollicking, explosive, diabolic Carmagnole!—has held its own against all new-comers, changing, but losing nothing of its sauciness, its explosiveness, and its diabolism as it has passed from the versions of 1792-93 through its seven clearly defined texts to the version of the memorable strike of Montceau-les-Mines in 1883.
After the execution of Ravachol[9] the airs of the “Ça Ira” and the Carmagnole were combined into a chanson called La Ravachole, which, in spite of this hybrid origin, may fairly be classed as the latest and by far the most vindictive version of the Carmagnole.
LA RAVACHOLE I Dans la grande ville de Paris (bis) Il y a des bourgeois bien nourris, (bis) Il y a les miséreux Qui ont le ventre creux. Ceux-là ont les dents longues, Vive le son, vive le son, Ceux-là ont les dents longues, Vive le son D’ l’explosion. [47] Refrain Dansons la Ravachole, Vive le son, vive le son, Dansons la Ravachole, Vive le son D’ l’explosion. Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira, Tous les bourgeois goût’ront d’ la bombe, Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira, Tous les bourgeois on les saut’ra, On les saut’ra. II Il y a les magistrats vendus, (bis) Il y a les financiers ventrus, (bis) Il y a les argosins; Mais pour tous ces coquins Il y a d’ la dynamite, Vive le son, vive le son, Il y a d’ la dynamite, Vive le son D’ l’explosion! Dansons, etc. III Il y a les sénateurs gâteux, (bis) Il y a les députés véreux, (bis) Il y a les généraux, Assassins et bourreaux, Bouchers en uniforme, Vive le son, vive le son, Bouchers en uniforme, Vive le son D’ l’explosion. Dansons, etc. [48] IV Il y a les hôtels des richards (bis) Tandis que les pauvres déchards (bis) A demi-morts de froid Et souffrant dans leurs doigts. Refilent la comète, Vive le son, vive le son, Refilent la comète, Vive le son D’ l’explosion. Dansons, etc. V Ah, nom de dieu, faut en finir! (bis) Assez longtemps geindre et souffrir! (bis) Pas de guerre à moitié! Plus de lâche pitié! Mort à la bourgeoisie, Vive le son, vive le son, Mort à la bourgeoisie, Vive le son D’ l’explosion! Dansons, etc.